The Chicken Or The Egg
by Orange Sodie
Summary: What comes first? [EC]
1. Chapter 1

The Chicken Or The Egg  
_Prologue_  
by Carolina

Over the years, being a CSI had taught Eric Delko a great deal about life.

How to lose it, how to get it back, how it give it away, how to take it – everything he did, every menial task he performed, whether it was taking a fingerprint or getting coffee for Alexx, it all came down to life. Every day was a new opportunity to figure out to protect it, his own as well as his peers', his family's, complete strangers. Without qualms. Without hesitation. It's noble, he'd heard, to put yourself at risk for others and expect nothing in return. And yet he easily recoiled when he was called a nobleman, after all, he thought of nobleness as greatness, and there was nothing particularly magnanimous about his life. At the end of the day he was just a guy willing to take a bullet for a complete stranger. Some called it nobility.

He liked to call it stupidity. Noble stupidity, perhaps, but stupidity all the same.

Yet there were moments when he wondered if it was all worth it, all the trouble they, as the law enforcement, went through to keep people safe, only to watch them turn around and destroy each other so easily. Some days he wondered if he could retire a little too early, find another line of work and distance himself from all the poison the city spewed onto itself. Wash his hands off it all. His mother had been begging him to do it for years – stop chasing after bullets and fingerprints, get a meaningless job, maybe real estate, find a nice girl and settle down. Most days that he walked out of the lab to deal with idiots and troglodytes killing each other over for whatever trite reason he thought maybe his mother had a point.

But the work was an addiction. At the same time that a life ended, his would take meaning. He'd grown obsessed with putting the puzzle together, finding pieces that fit and discarding those that didn't, and finally being able to see the big picture. Bringing justice to those who couldn't speak anymore. Bringing peace of mind to their families. Risking his life so that others wouldn't have to worry about their safety.

He knew he'd probably be able to extend his life expectancy infinitely if he quit the job, got a real estate license, and gave complimentary cookies away as he tried to sell homes, but somehow life without the prospect of the puzzle had become a meaningless estimation. And so he got out of bed every morning and slowly got through the tough days (because every life is important), talked himself through the negative thoughts (because every life is worth saving), and tried to see the big picture (you help life continue, new life begin and grow, and that's all that matters), all the while walking on landmines to keep millions of strangers safe.

How ever stupid it made him.


	2. Chapter 2

The Chicken Or The Egg  
_Chapter One_  
by Carolina

Eric stood in the layout room, hunched over the table and carefully removing a gun from a meticulously marked envelope. There were still traces of blood on it, and though he knew Valera had already gotten her needed sample, he was careful not to smear anything away as he put the gun down on the table and spread various tools around it. It had taken him two weeks to finally find the gun, cleverly stashed inside the Robinson's doghouse, and without needing much confirmation he knew this would finally break the case. He certainly didn't want his carelessness to compromise it now.

He was about to dust it for fingerprints when Calleigh walked into the room.

"Is that the gun?"

Eric looked up. She grabbed a pair of gloves from the box in the counter and as she put them on she walked closer, looking down at it with the same fascination and anxiety he had been. It always got emotionally eclectic when they were an AFIS search away from solving a case.

"Yeah, I was just about to dust it."

Calleigh looked worried and distracted, but Eric knew it was most likely a byproduct of the case. "Think we'll get anything off of it?"

He smiled down at the gun. "So long as it doesn't turn out to be _another _gun-totting dog with a lucky aim, I'll take anything."

Calleigh sighed, found a stool by the corner and dragged it over, sat down and started watching and Eric would feel weird, normally, except lately this had become a part of his work routine. Over the last couple of weeks, he'd found himself trying to do his job while Calleigh sat in a corner, watching. Very rarely did she say something, and when she did it always pertained to the case. He tried to convince himself that there was a deadline to meet and Calleigh, being in charge of the case, merely wanted to make sure everything went smoothly. Calleigh had never been one to police his work before, and he was sure she had work to do as well, but he still tried not to think too much of it.

It rarely worked. The longer it went on, the more he worried; worried that there was something going on in her life that she was reluctant to tell him, worried that she might've gotten herself into trouble and was too proud to say anything to him. Over the years they'd both matured and grown serious, and thus slightly apart, and thought he considered her one of his closest friends he still worried that maybe they'd drifted so far apart that she had grown scared to talk about her personal life with him.

All questions with difficult answers. He found nothing about Calleigh was strictly black and white. So he tried to put it on the back of his mind and concentrate on the work. He'd learned steadily that you don't push Calleigh Duquesne to do or say anything against her will, and so if she had an ulterior motive for her recent bout of staring contests, he'd decided to let her slowly come out of her shell. Too much prodding and she'd retreat back into it; any sudden movements and she might get defensive. Until she found her comfort zone he would have to conceal his worry and hope everything was alright.

The partial fingerprint on the gun began to take shape and Eric stood back. Calleigh's interest piqued and she walked over, leaning into him to take a look.

"That is not a dog paw," she noted.

"Looks like Scruffy's in the clear," Eric said. "I'll scan it and put it through the system."

He began to pack the gun again and move away when suddenly she was in the way, and looking at her expression suddenly made Eric feel a little nervous. She didn't look like the strong, confident, stubborn Calleigh he'd always known, in fact, in her present state she looked rather small and vulnerable.

"Listen, I, uh," she lingered, looking in all kinds of directions except his. "I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner tonight, if you don't have plans."

He looked at her and she looked scared and hesitant and annoyed at the same time, trying to act casual but failing badly. He had no idea how to react, or what to think, except there was suddenly a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach that he didn't like.

"Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine." She smiled brightly, albeit not completely joyously, and that possibly made things worse. "Just wanna catch up."

Eric chuckled, though he didn't really know why. It was something he'd always done when nervous. "Okay, sure. Where are you taking me?"

She looked puzzled, her eyebrows furrowed. "I don't know."

"Do I have to dress up?"

Calleigh shook her head. "No. I don't think so. I don't know."

Eric smiled. "Well, you sure aren't giving this girl a lot of prep time."

She looked at him seriously and it wasn't until she realized he was joking that she was able to relax. She chuckled once, scratched the side of her face and looked at him again. "Eight o'clock?"

"You got it," he said and began to walk away, and though she still looked worried and distracted, he got the distinct feeling she was struggling as hell to keep her head above the water. The fact that she was struggling against something, be it huge or insignificant, created mixed feelings, because however disturbing the idea of Calleigh being in trouble was, he knew there was no fight she couldn't lose.

"You sure make an ugly girl, by the way," he heard her say behind him, an unmistakable twang of humor in her tone.

Eric turned around and grinned. "Jealous."

She laughed as he walked away and he thought it sounded like music to his ears, and it certainly helped him wane his paranoia slightly.

And he could spare the distraction, because the AFIS search was fruitless and their case suddenly stalled. They threw a myriad of theories into the air - burglary, suicide, an accident - but nothing could explain why the family's oldest son was found shot to death in their garage. And then they had to go to that place where no one wanted to go, and when Eric compared the fingerprints found on the gun with those of every family member, the match came down on them like a boulder.

It was hard to watch the Robinson family fall apart in the interrogation room as 13-year-old Seth finally confessed between tears and sobs. Eric shook his head as an officer escorted Seth away, because it's bad enough when a brother accidentally shoots another brother, but when a brother kills his own kin over a stupid video game, that's when he feels there's nothing worth fighting for anymore. He put his life at risk every day, and during moments like these he got the feeling it wasn't worth it.

"Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos," he mused aloud as he watched Mr. Robinson escort a crying Mrs. Robinson out of the building.

"What?" Calleigh said beside him, looking distracted.

Eric shook his head and stood up. There was a mountain of paperwork waiting for him that he wasn't looking forward to working on. "It's something my mom always says."

Calleigh frowned at him and ran the words in her mind one more time. "Raise crows and they'll gouge your eyes out?"

"It's a saying," Eric explained. "You don't discipline your kids when they're little, this is what they grow up to be."

Calleigh thought about it a while. The Robinsons seemed like a normal family, loving parents, suburban bliss, two smart boys who got opportunities that she, as a child, had never received. Their own rooms, their own toys, their own bikes, their own shoes and clothes, some day their own cars, most likely. The American dream.

Only one video game console and suddenly their life turned into a nightmare.

"They wanted their kids to have everything they didn't," she said thoughtfully.

"That's the problem," Eric said, gathering the files together. "Kids today, they think they deserve everything, so when they don't get something, they flip out. I had to share _everything_ with my sisters: hairbrushes, beds, not to mention the toys. A Game Boy for each kid? The only time I played Atari was when we went over to Ricky's two houses over, and we took turns. Poor Mari never owned new clothes, they were all hand-me-downs from Isabel and Clara."

Calleigh looked at him, and in the middle of his rant suddenly his tone changed and the frustration disappeared. Eric looked down at the files distantly and smiled crookedly. "First paycheck she ever got, she blew it all at the mall," he remembered fondly. "She came home with all these bags of new clothes and make up, and the look on her face, I'll never forget it."

Calleigh smiled. Since Marisol died, Eric hadn't mentioned her once. At least not to her. She'd been reluctant to ask, because she didn't know she was the right person, not after she let her emotions take over and made an idiot out of herself outside the hospital. She didn't know if she deserved to be the understanding friend now, when she couldn't see past her own misconceptions and recognize what was truly going on then.

But seeing the look on his face spoke volumes about how much he'd loved Marisol. It made her smile, knowing the love was still there, and the anger was apparently dissolving.

"No wonder she always looked so pretty and put together," she said.

"Yeah."

She knew she shouldn't go there, not here, not in the middle of an interrogation room with people walking in and out unannounced. She knew she should've saved it for later, wait to get him alone in a room to prove if her concern over him was unwarranted or not. But there was an open door and she grabbed the opportunity.

"Do you miss her?"

She knew it was coming, but couldn't tell if it was merely instinct or something more. Sure enough, the façade went back up and he changed the subject quickly. "Yeah. Listen, I—are you picking me up or am I picking you up?"

Calleigh half smiled through the bitter taste his reluctance left in her mouth. "I'll pick you up."

"Okay," he said, tapping the table awkwardly. "I'll finish this and see you then."

"Okay." She smiled but he quickly picked up the files and walked out of the room. She watched him meet Ryan outside and together they headed towards the lab.

Calleigh knew in the last few years Eric had grown reserved and introverted, but for her sake she preferred to think there was a family waiting for him back home, and even though Marisol's death had been devastating, they were still the tight unit they always had been. It was better than the alternative, than the idea of Eric going home to an empty house and drinking too many glasses of Scotch as he watched mundane movies. Better than him dealing with her death the way he'd dealt with Speed's.

Or worse.

But then she saw him come to work most days with that empty look on his face and she knew that her hopes were most likely just that. She felt guilty most of the time, because even though she wanted to reach out and be a good friend to him, she found she really didn't know what to say. She'd never lost a sibling, hell, she'd never lost someone she loved as much as Eric loved Marisol, and until she did she wouldn't be able to understand his pain. The worst part was knowing that if the roles were reversed, Eric would probably be the first one to offer a shoulder to lean on. He was always good at that, even if he didn't understand, even if he didn't really get it or knew why, he was always there when she needed him. But the roles would never change and he would always be the strong one, even if he didn't know it.

She sighed and stood up, running her hand through her forehead and already feeling drained, a small headache lurking around the back of her head. She left the interrogation room and closed the door behind her, not knowing how she was going to make it through dinner tonight.

---

Eric walked out of the interrogation room and nodded at Ryan, who was making his way towards him with a few files tucked under his armpit. He made a beeline for the entrance (he didn't feel particularly sociable at the moment) but the younger man caught up to him quickly.

"Hey," Ryan said noncommittally. "I hear you got the killer."

"Yeah, he's 13," Eric sighed. "They keep getting younger."

"And my brother's always wondering why I never visit the new baby," Ryan said. "You never know what they're packing in those diapers these days."

"Not that the shit is a much better alternative."

"Gross," Ryan said. Together they made it back to the lab and though Ryan knew he had an appointment with a stack of papers, he followed Eric into the break room. There was a freshly brewed pot of coffee in the counter and while Eric dropped his body on the couch with a tired grunt, Ryan decided a mid-afternoon jolt of energy was a much better alternative than sulking.

As he poured himself a cup he looked over his shoulder. "Wanna get hammered tonight? There's this new club near my building."

"No thanks," Eric said flatly, sorting the file on the coffee table in front of him.

"Come on," Ryan cajoled. "You gotta get hammered after a case like this, it's the law."

"I have plans. And stop saying hammered."

Ryan turned around, intrigued. "Date?"

"No."

"So blow it off."

"No."

"What's more important than getting hammered with me, even more important than a date?"

Eric sighed and looked up at the ceiling contemplatively. "Uh, let's see, more important than getting hammered with you... oh, God, the list just goes on and on... well, there's doing my hair, starting early on my taxes, rearranging my furniture, catching up on my celebrity gossip, watching boring infomercials, paint my kitchen and then watch it dry—"

"Yeah, yeah, you don't have to be an ass about it," Ryan said.

Eric watched as he walked over and sat on the other couch, looking down at his coffee with a frown. He shook his head and suddenly felt bad. However mellow his relationship with Ryan had been lately, he knew it was still just as susceptible to another tiff, and he really didn't want to be the one to start it.

"I'm having dinner with a friend," he confessed casually.

Ryan's curiosity piqued once more. "A female friend?"

"None of your business."

"That's a yes," Ryan mused. Though he truly had little interest in Eric's personal life, he'd developed a liking for being annoying lately. Maybe it was the boredom. "So this female friend—"

"Stop."

"You're not blowing her off, even though you're in a bad mood and this case made you wanna go on a murdering rampage, which means this is important to you, which means—"

Eric looked up finally. "Since when did you turn into a gossip?"

"It's been a slow week, I'm trying something new," Ryan said. "Soooo. You're having an unbelievably bad day, and you're still going to this thing, which means—"

"Which means you need to shut the hell up."

"—she asked _you _out, and you're not blowing her off," Ryan continued, grinning at his cup of coffee. "I hate to break it to you, buddy, but you're going on a date."

"No, I'm not," Eric said monotonously.

"Then she's breaking up with you."

Eric frowned. "We're... not dating. I thought I made that clear and wow, you suck at this."

"Girls don't ask guys out, Delko, unless they have a reason to," Ryan said. "She's coming on to you. _Man_, you're lucky, did you know that?"

Eric frowned at him and nearly laughed. Ryan's powers of deduction, it was both annoying and sad at the same time. "How do you know this?"

"I have a gift," Ryan said seriously.

Eric half smiled, shaking his head. "Every couple of months you hook up with a woman you despise for a night of hateful, obsessive-compulsive hobbit sex, and you think that makes you an expert on female intentions?"

Ryan frowned indignantly. "Somehow. And I've been bulking up."

"Yeah, well, let me know when you graduate to Gap Kids, I don't wanna miss the ceremony," Eric said, and waving a hand in front of him definitively he added, "and drop it. There's nothing weird about two friends catching up, regardless of the opposing genitalia."

"And you don't have to be a fucking genius to know that women are always up to something," Ryan said. "Joke all you want, tomorrow you're walking into this lab with the biggest emotional hangover in history."

Eric shook his head, and standing up, he picked up the paperwork before he rolled his eyes at Ryan. "You're a mockery to mankind."

"Sticks and stones, man," Ryan said.

Eric ignored him was about to walk out of the break room when suddenly Valera was in front of him, studying him with a serious expression on her face. He frowned at her.

"I hear you're going on a date," she said suspiciously.

He looked incredulously at Ryan, who merely shrugged his shoulders. "I'm good. She's better."

Eric looked at Valera, shaking his head in confusion. "How the hell—do you have microphones in every room?"

"I'm gifted, Eric," Valera explained seriously. "I'm a gift."

Eric rolled his eyes and turned to Ryan. "Why don't you take Valera?" he said. "Or better yet, go home and catch that new episode of Gilmore Girls, I know you've been counting the minutes."

Ryan looked at him belligerently. "I have TiVo."

Eric frowned at him and groaned disbelievingly before he walked away. Valera looked at Ryan and smiled sardonically, crossing her arms in front of her. "You know she's never going back to Luke."

"Shut up!"

---

Eight o'clock finally came around and Eric didn't know what he'd been expecting, except the ride was quiet and a little awkward. He was tired, and in dire need of some aspirin and at least three days of sleep, but something told him this was important and Calleigh might finally tell him what had been bothering her lately, so he suck it up and tried to pay attention to the signs.

And there were many of them. Her casual demeanor was conspicuously absent, her shoulders were tense and she gripped onto the steering wheel awkwardly. She was being awfully considerate and submissive, and after she evaded his questions with two many 'I don't knows' and fidgeted her fingers far too long, Eric took over and guided her to a little restaurant called Don Quixote in Coconut Grove.

He still had no idea what they were doing or what the dinner really meant, after all, Calleigh seemed too nervous about it being a friendly dinner, and too distracted for it to be a date, regardless of Ryan's piss-poor theories. Not that she would wanna date him, but there was something odd about her behavior that Eric couldn't figure out. She was wearing her go-to black dress, which meant she wasn't trying to impress him (he was too worried to be disappointed) and though she looked beautiful, she seemed far too distracted for him to be able to contemplate that.

Besides, she always looked beautiful. Not like she had to put any efforts into that.

Mainly, he had no idea how to act. He knew something was up, and he could tell she knew that he knew, so trying to act casual when there was something looming so heavily was absolutely futile. For a while he tried to be gentlemanly, opening doors for her, guiding her into the restaurant with the subtle hand on the small of her back, but if anything that tensed her up even more. So he quickly dropped that as well and decided to be himself, though that rarely got him anywhere concrete where Calleigh was concerned.

By the time they were seated her fingers had turned red from all the fidgeting and Eric found himself just as nervous, though he had no idea why. She was closely contemplating the items on the menu but he found himself unable to do the same. The dull glow of the candle on the table made her look soft and flushed and beautiful, and for some reason that made him even more nervous. He didn't know if it was the situation, after all, he rarely found himself alone with Calleigh Duquesne in a nice restaurant, his hands sweating and lightheaded, but if he had to describe the moment it would closely resemble those dreams in which he had to take a test he never studied for.

Naked.

She took a deep breath and looked up and though a voice in his head told him to look away quickly his body reacted too slowly. She caught him looking and Eric didn't really know what her normal reaction would be, most likely take a gun out from an ankle strap and shoot him, but she didn't do that. Rather smiled and looked down as a moment of _something_ passed between them. Eric frowned lightly. That? Not normal at all.

"So," he said just to say something out loud. "We haven't done this in a while."

"I don't believe we've ever done this," Calleigh said.

"You're right." Eric suddenly felt confrontational and confident. "Is everything okay? Is there something—are you okay?"

She looked at him and smiled. "I'm fine, Eric."

Her reassurance only made him worry more. Calleigh's 'I'm fine', he'd found, was always code for something complicated and worrisome.

"You've been acting a little weird."

She looked down at the menu and he knew he'd pushed too far, but suddenly he didn't feel like playing games. "You can talk to me, Cal. I won't—"

"I know, Eric." She smiled genuinely and suddenly he relaxed, somewhat, and as she contemplated the Mahi-Mahi he settled for the steak and tried really hard to let the evening take its own course. Calleigh began to talk about the case, in typical Calleigh fashion, letting murders and robberies and infidelity put a mantle over the big elephant in the room. Eric collaborated, as much as he tried, but couldn't ignore the fact that Calleigh was on her third glass of Pinot Grigio when the food finally arrived.

The fourth when they took the plates away. Calleigh had never been a heavy drinker, or much of a drinker at that, so this was definitely serious.

"So," he cleared his throat as she wrapped her fingers around the glass of wine like it was a lifesaver. "You said you wanted to catch up."

"I did."

She had, but he could tell now that had been a lie. As much as it bothered him to admit it now, Ryan had been right, and Calleigh had an ulterior motive for this dinner. Eric didn't know what to feel, either, because his suspicions may have been correct, but Calleigh wasn't acting in a way that told him the situation was severe. And so he began to wonder what was bad enough that made her want to bring him to the restaurant, and yet not nearly as grave that she hadn't burst into tears yet. Everything in between remained but a giant puzzle with too many missing pieces.

She began to eye the dessert menu and Eric jumped at the opportunity to move things along, but she quickly waved it away when he suggested they share a flan. And that's when he couldn't keep quiet any longer.

"Okay, Calleigh, you never turn down flan," he said somewhat humorously. "What's going on?"

The wine had done its part in loosening her up, which he suspected had been her intention, but not quite as much as he'd hoped.

"Nothing's wrong, Eric."

He chuckled incredulously. He had to give her tenaciousness some credit. "You're a bad liar."

"I'm a _great_ liar," she said somewhat flirtatiously.

"You're right, you are," he relented. "I guess I'm just better at reading you than you are at lying to me."

She chuckled, and when Eric thought everything might be alright after all she reached for her glass and drank the reminder of her wine in one gulp. When it was all gone she sighed, putting her napkin down on the table and looking at it just far too long for Eric's liking. He wanted to take the thing and heave it across the room, but that might probably stall any progress he had made, and he didn't wanna push his luck.

"I brought you here because I wanted to talk to you about something," she finally said and Eric scooted closer, trying to ignore all the negative images his mind conjured, of Calleigh quitting the job, Calleigh moving to another city, Calleigh announcing she had cancer and the prognosis wasn't good. At the prospect of this his heart began to beat faster and his hands began to sweat again. He knew instantly he wouldn't be able to take another blow like this, so soon after Marisol.

"Okay," he said dryly.

"Well," she cleared her throat, though that didn't stop her voice from quivering slightly. "For the last couple of months I've been thinking a lot about my life and where it's going—or, not going, as may be the case. You know I love my job, but over the last few years I've become one of those people who work 18 hours a day and then come home and keep working—"

Eric smiled, ignoring the fact that her speech sounded plastic and rehearsed. "I think we all are those people."

"It's different for you guys, you and Ryan, even Horatio." She sighed, and immediately he could tell she hated talking about this as much as he hated hearing it. "It's my own fault, I let the job take over my life and now I don't have much of a life at all. The truth is, I'm not happy when I'm not working, which is probably the reason why I work so much."

Eric frowned slightly, instinctively reaching for her hand and he was surprised she didn't pull away. He didn't think too much of that. Couldn't. "You're not quitting, are you?"

"No," Calleigh smiled and shook her head. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "For the last few months I've been thinking a lot about what I wanna do with my life, and what I _should_ do, and I think," she said reluctantly and then stopped herself and continued confidently, though avoiding eye contact, "no, I _know_ now that I wanna have a baby."

She looked for his reaction hesitantly and Eric merely opened his mouth. The words played over and over again in his head but for some reason they had little meaning. "Wow, that's—" he said with less enthusiasm than he should have and stopped, because though he willed himself to say something, preferably positive and supportive, very few words came out. "You mean now?"

Calleigh smiled. "Yeah. I'm not getting any younger; the more I wait the more complications there are, and to be honest I don't even know if there's something worth waiting for."

Eric frowned and shook his head incredulously. "Calleigh, that's—"

"Eric, I've heard it all," she stopped him softly. "It's just not working."

He looked at her, and there was a sadness in her eyes that she was vainly trying to conceal. He squeezed her hand and tried to understand, tried to understand her position but the idea of Calleigh having trouble finding a guy was beyond the realm of ridiculous to him. She was smart, funny, and gorgeous. True, very few men out there deserved Calleigh, hell, to Eric there wasn't a man out there worthy enough of her, but he always imagined her turning heads wherever she went. How could she possibly have a hard time finding someone?

"Anyway," she continued, seemingly all business like. "I talked to Alexx, she helped me find a doctor, and I've been reading a lot and doing research and I think I'm ready now."

Eric looked at her. She appeared very serious and committed, like she was considering buying a house or a horse. "So, _now _now?"

"Well, now when it takes," she said, and the puzzled look on his face prompted her to chuckle. She patted his hand before retrieving hers. "I'm doing artificial insemination."

"Oh," Eric said, and for some God forsaken reason that sounded weirder than the bulk of the conversation. "Wow. That sounds—"

"Impersonal?"

"Well yeah. I mean, I always thought making a baby was about two people," Eric said somewhat awkwardly, waving his hands back and forth between the two of them. He laughed nervously. "You know?"

"Yeah, I know." Calleigh smiled understandingly. "But, not always, you know? It's different for a lot of women. It's not always ideal or even romantic."

Eric nodded. He understood, really. It wasn't a novel idea. Artificial insemination and sperm banks, fertility treatments and syringes, single mothers... he got it.

Except for the part where it was _Calleigh _making that choice. That he didn't get. He could see other women making this decision, he wasn't isolated from modern society. He was open minded and understanding. But the idea of Calleigh being one of them, it'd never occurred to him. Even now, he was having a hard time even picturing her going through this. Not being a mother per se, but going about it in such an unusual, unconventional, un-Calleigh way. Just didn't seem right.

"You're sure about this?" he said carefully, because very few people underestimated Calleigh and lived to tell about it.

"I'm sure," she said definitively and Eric knew that was probably it. Calleigh's head had a huge, accommodating In door, so big that there was no room for an Out door; once she got something in her head, she couldn't let it go.

"Anyway," she sighed, looking at his half full glass of wine with appetite. "There's, uh, a sperm bank I've visited. A few, actually. The doctor said the procedure is very easy and once I pick a donor I can just, go down there and you know... get all turkey-bastered."

Eric chuckled, and not only did it feel good to be able to, especially now, it felt great to know they could still do that to each other in spite of it all. "Sounds like you got it all figured out."

"Almost." She took a deep breath and sighed. "I wanted to tell you about this first because, well it's awkward with Horatio; I don't have that trust with him. And Ryan... I'm not sure he'd understand, and he tends not to think before he speaks. I don't wanna have to explain myself over and over again or make excuses."

Eric rolled his eyes. "He thinks this is a date."

Calleigh laughed. "He's not a bad guy, just needs to be a little more open minded."

Eric nodded. "Among other things."

She shook her head, dismissing his comment. "I also wanted to tell you first because, well, I--I have the chance to choose how I want my baby to look and be. Not every mother gets that opportunity and I don't wanna—take any chances, or—ruin him. Or her. I don't wanna—I wanna do this _right, _it has to be right."

Eric shook his head at her trepidation and smiled warmly. "Cal, you'd be a _great_ mom, you don't have to worry about that."

"It's not what I meant." She took a deep, shaky breath, and the way she shifted on her seat made him think she wanted nothing more than to take off running. He would've understood, had he been able to predict the words that were about to come out of her mouth.

"Eric, I wanted to ask you if you would be my sperm donor," she said hesitantly and uncharacteristically, her fingers as shaky as her voice.

That's when his vocal chords finally shut out. He heard nothing but white noise in his head and felt a little light-headed. Suddenly the half glass of wine in front of him was all he could focus on and he grabbed it, drowned it down quickly and called the waiter over for a refill.

"Eric?"

She was looking at him expectantly and nervously and Eric tried to make the words make sense in his head, but she might as well have said them in Chinese. Suddenly there was a full glass of Pinot Grigio in front of him again and he picked it up, drinking from it carelessly and he nearly choked on the wine.

Calleigh grabbed the glass from him and kept it close to her chest. She put her hand on his hand and squeezed. "Eric."

He cleared his throat and sighed, meeting her eyes for the first time, and they were wide and nearly blue, hesitant and scared but something more as well. There were words in his brain, jumbled, sure, but they were there. Words like 'really' and 'how' and 'why.' All he could manage, however, was a dull, "wow."

Calleigh nodded and drank the remainder of his wine in agreement. "I know."

He looked at her, hoping she'd smile and then laugh and then point at him and say something akin to 'gotcha! Man, you're a sucker.' But instead, she looked at him nervously, and all of a sudden her odd behavior from the last couple of months began to make sense.

But that was _all_ that made sense.

Eric sighed again. He looked at her and raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to say something and wanting to say something himself, but the silence prevailed. He was sure now that if he looked up the word 'awkward' in the dictionary, there would be a picture of this moment.

"You want..." he finally croaked out uncertainly, "you want us to have a baby."

"No," Calleigh chuckled, putting the glass down. "_I _want to have a baby. The baby would be mine, you would just help me with the... you know," she said. "The, conception of it, or—" She didn't care finishing the thought because it was obvious that Eric wasn't paying much attention to what she was saying, but rather what she'd just asked him.

She finally took a deep breath, allowing herself to take control of the situation. "You don't have to be there, Eric, emotionally or financially, it would just be me. I want to do this alone. I would be perfectly fine doing it alone. You don't even have to tell anyone, if you don't want to—"

He was shaking his head. "Calleigh—"

"You don't have to say yes. If you don't feel comfortable—it's okay. I have a plan B, I could get an anonymous donation, it's fine," she said with too much carelessness for it to be truthful. "I just wanted to ask you first."

Eric looked at her, and though he still got the feeling he was dreaming the whole thing, the seriousness in her eyes told him he was very much awake, and as unbelievable as the situation was to him, to her, it meant more than he could imagine.

And in truth, he only calmed down when it dawned on him that this was important to her. There were people in his life he could look in the eyes and quickly dismiss, but that had never been possible with Calleigh. Eric had never been ashamed to admit there wasn't much he wasn't willing to put himself through for her. In retrospect, it was probably one of the reasons why they were having that conversation, and it wasn't Ryan or Horatio sitting in his place.

Eric reached for a glass of water. It wasn't until he felt the liquid sliding down his throat that he realized how dry his mouth had been. He cleared his throat and put the glass down slowly. His heart was beating fast and he felt jittery. He looked at her, and she was smiling lightly and expectantly.

"Well, don't get me wrong, I'm flattered," he said, trying to deflect the situation with humor.

Calleigh smiled at him. "No, you're not."

"No I'm not, I'm a _little _weirded out," Eric admitted jocosely. "But I'm sure I'll be flattered in the morning."

Calleigh chuckled, feeling the weight of the world leaving her body, grateful for his reaction. "You're under no obligation, Eric, just because we're friends," she said. "Take your time, think about it. It took me _months _to make this decision, and I don't want you to take it lightly, either, even if the answer is no."

Eric smiled. "I haven't said no."

"You might. And that's okay," she said. "Like I said, I have a plan B. I have a plan C, even."

He nodded, and though she sounded and looked certain, finally calmed and somewhat relaxed, something inside of Eric prevented him from breathing properly. Calleigh called the waiter over for the check and his mind must've been galaxies away, because it didn't occur to him that he should pay for the bill until she had. She said something about letting him go home and get some rest and he nodded like a trained baboon, going through the motions and it wasn't until he was on his wobbly feet that he realized they hadn't spent the last half hour in their own little world away from all these strangers.

He wondered if he looked normal to everyone around him. He wondered what his face actually looked like now. He wondered if he and Calleigh looked like a couple of friends catching up or perhaps colleagues talking about work. He wondered if any of them knew and if they knew, he wondered if any one of these people could explain what the hell had just happened tonight.

The night was chilly and upon stepping out of the restaurant a cold gust blew into them and Calleigh jumped in place, chuckling slightly and bumping into him. Without knowing why he put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him in the most uncharacteristic way, his mind asking him if this was all a dream because this just didn't seem to be the Calleigh he'd always known. Going into the restaurant she'd been nervous, scared, looked like she wanted to throw up. Now she seemed lighter, taller, and he wasn't entirely sure, but he got the distinct impression that she was feeling happy. Happiness wasn't a feeling he particularly associated with the Calleigh he'd known for the past couple of months, and though God knew she deserved that feeling, he wasn't entirely sure about its sudden source.

They got to her car and Calleigh stopped abruptly, turning to him. She smiled hesitantly. "This isn't gonna change everything, is it?"

Eric looked at her, and the uncertainty in her eyes and the way she looked at him expectantly nearly broke his heart. And though his mind screamed otherwise, he ignored it and answered a plain, "no."

She smiled warmly, squeezed his hand and got into her car. Eric closed her door and sighed heavily, closing his eyes. Lying to Calleigh had never a good way to start a week.

_To be continued._


	3. Chapter 3

The Chicken Or The Egg  
_Chapter Two_

He couldn't sleep that night.

Somewhere between the 984th and 985th toss and turn it hit him like a ton of bricks what Calleigh had really asked of him that night. It weigh down on him like a few dozen ton of bricks and he could barely think straight, let alone chase away the parade of thoughts that invaded his mind, so he could get a decent night of sleep.

And yet it still felt like a dream. Surreal. The shock of it prevented him from fully understanding the bulk of the conversation and yet it still knocked the air out of him. He turned on his stomach, hoping the new position would help him drift off, but he quickly accepted the fact that he wouldn't be able to get any sleep that night. Not when he couldn't prevent his mind from going straight to those places he knew he shouldn't revisit.

It'd taken him too long to get over Speed's death. Sometimes he got the feeling he wasn't even there yet. The pain had been excruciating, so much so that at one point he began to wonder why they bothered with their jobs at all, to be careless while chasing suspects because he began to see something alluring about death and nothing special about life. Life, the way he saw it, handed him nothing but hardships, disappointment after disappointment, brief periods of happiness followed by another curve ball that knocked him out of the field. Death and taxes. Both inevitable. So far death didn't seem to have its designs on him, but he knew, death was constantly looking out for someone.

So losing Speed made him want to distance himself from those around him, especially his colleagues. Because if Speed could go then Horatio could go, Alexx could go, Calleigh could go, and the last thing he wanted was to deal with another big loss. It hurt, watching Calleigh commiserate with Ryan, watching her laugh with Ryan, watching her drift away from him and get closer to the younger CSI. For years he'd been the one to make her laugh, to bring out her playful side (which very few people got to see), and it'd nearly killed him to hand that job over to another guy. He saw them together, laughing and being friendly, and he hated it and it hurt way more than he cared to admit. But it was something he'd had to do. Even the thought of losing Calleigh was excruciating; actually losing her would be too much to handle. So he figured it wouldn't hurt as much if he kept his distance, put up a wall between him and everyone at work. During that time he focused on his family, his life outside the lab, those people he knew would be safe.

And then life threw one at him out of left field and took Marisol instead. When solitude and alcohol were his only two companions, he nearly laughed at the truly fucked up turn his life had taken. He'd distance himself from work to avoid another heartache, only to have his personal follow him there. He was sure that when God invented the Unbelievingly Unlucky Bastard, he used an Eric Delko shaped mold.

And then Calleigh comes along, asking him to do something that will surely glue them together for the rest of their lives. Have a baby. With Calleigh. One of the very people he'd been trying to push away out of fear, and now she was invading his life and his thoughts, asking something of him that he wasn't sure he could give her. Physically, maybe. Physically it was easy. Just give her a test tube and that was that.

And yet emotionally, it was an entirely different matter.

He got out of bed, walked into the living room and killed the rest of the night by watching television. He arrived at the lab early the next morning, avoiding eye contact with any mirrors because he was sure the dark circles under his eyes would soon come to life and take over his entire body like gangrene. He noticed Calleigh's car wasn't in the parking lot yet, and he couldn't remember a time when he arrived at work before her.

Or everyone else, for that matter. Alexx's SUV was the only car he recognized in the lot, and so he dragged his feet into the lab, where he proceeded to seek out the comfort of his strongest brew. The coffee left a bad feeling in his stomach, and he thought if he could just take refuge in work all of these thoughts would go away. The night shift was getting ready to go home and all the rooms were empty, and that would give him the opportunity to work uninterrupted for once, but for once he practically felt his body reject the notion of work, and so he walked out of the break room and went in search of the one person he thought could help alleviate his confusion.

Emotional hangover. He didn't know what was worse: the feeling itself or the fact that Ryan Wolfe had been right.

Alexx was in the morgue. What she was doing there so early, Eric didn't know, except there'd been some rumors floating around about Alexx having problems with her husband. Eric wasn't one to butt into other people's business, or believe too much in gossip for that matter, so he merely smiled when he saw her and she returned the gesture with a tired half-smile.

"You're here early," she noted. "What's wrong?"

"I can't come to work early?" Eric said a tad humorously.

Alexx merely raised her eyebrow in that way of hers that always implied something along the lines of _if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all_ and went back to work.

Eric chuckled, put his hands on the edge of the autopsy table and looked down at the corpse. "Gutierrez?"

"I'm almost done."

He watched as she stretched the skin of the corpse together and began to stitch it. Usually watching Alexx work was hypnotizing, in a morbid kind of way. She was careful with the bodies and respectful, sometimes talked to them and caressed their hair. The first time he was witness to this he wondered if there was something not right in Alexx's head, but quickly he understood why she was so loving towards the bodies, though he sure as hell couldn't explain it. He liked to watch her work, usually. Today, his mind was miles away.

He tried to be as discreet as he could when he finally talked, as normal and nonchalant. He wasn't sure it worked too well. "I talked to Calleigh last night."

Alexx looked up and didn't say a word; he could tell she knew what he'd meant. "What did you—"

"I told her I'd think about it." He sighed, and suddenly felt the weight of it all on his shoulders, the frustration and confusion overwhelming him again. "I just don't get why she wants to do this."

Alexx smiled, smoothly running the needle into the man's body and stitching the skin together. "It's not easy getting old, honey. Not for a woman."

He nearly laughed at the absurdity of her remark. "Calleigh's not old."

"No, she's not," Alexx agreed. "Honey, this is something you couldn't understand."

"Why, because I'm a man?" Eric said, feeling slightly defensive. "You don't think people put the same pressure on me to have a baby?"

"No," Alexx said simply. "I'm sorry, Eric, but I don't."

"Well, allow me to introduce you to my mother some time," he said.

"It's not the same, Eric. A man can have a baby in his 70s and it's fine. It's not the same for a woman," Alexx said.

Eric chuckled bitterly. "So, the alternative is having a baby when you're 32. On your own."

"Calleigh's not stupid, Eric."

"I didn't say she was," he said and chuckled somewhat disbelievingly. "Alexx, you sound like you actually support her."

"Of course I do," Alexx said, shrugging her shoulders. "Honey, you know Calleigh." 

"Yeah, I know her," Eric said, and suddenly he felt frustrated that no one seemed to think this was weird. "When Calleigh gets something in her head she won't let go, doesn't mean she's making the right decision."

Alexx gave him a stern look. "There's nothing wrong about wanting to be a mother."

"That's not what I meant." He sighed, wondering how he could verbalize what he was feeling. "I just don't think she should go about it like this, on her own."

"Eric, sometimes life doesn't happen the way we plan it," Alexx explained, her eyes still on the body. "Calleigh's just figured this out, and she doesn't want to sit out while the years pass her by. She wants to do this, and I think she can, and you know she can, too."

He looked down, shaking his head. "Of course she can, she's Calleigh."

Alexx smiled, abandoning the body and giving Eric her full attention. "She'll be fine, honey. You think this is something she decided to do out of the blue? She knows, she understands, and she wants to do it alone."

He looked at her. "She doesn't want to do it alone, Alexx, she thinks she _has_ to."

"That's her choice, honey," Alexx said. "We can't force her to change her mind."

Eric looked down and he thought about it for a while. The idea of choosing to be a single parent... he couldn't understand that, couldn't understand why a person would want to make life that much harder for themselves, not to mention their children. Single motherhood meant extra work, day care and nannies and financial struggles.

Not to mention the lack of a father. If anything that bothered him more than anything else. Not that his own father deserved the Father of the Year award, but every time Eric needed guidance, every time he needed advice or to feel grounded, he could always go to his father. He was a stern old man, and stubborn as hell, but he'd always done everything he could for his children, and without the love of his father Eric didn't know what kind of man he'd be today. Probably not a very noble one.

And Calleigh's baby would miss out on that. He couldn't fathom the idea, or how he shouldn't think of her baby as his baby, too. And he didn't want his child to grow up without a dad, without Sunday trips to the lake to fish, without learning to catch a ball or shave, without stern lectures. Just didn't seem right.

Alexx's attention was back to the body, and Eric looked away, wanting to verbalize his thoughts and yet feeling slightly out of place, his mind reeling too quickly or to slow for him to form a coherent thought. "She doesn't even want me around," he muttered somewhat miserably.

Alexx looked up cocked her head to the side pitifully. "That's not true. You're friends, honey, of course you're gonna be around."

"Not the way it should be," he said, letting the frustration take over again and his voice elevated. "Every girl out there, you have to practically put on a bronze suit just because everyone wants to be so careful, and here's Calleigh _asking me_ to get her pregnant?"

"Eric—"

"And then, say I do, say this happens—what happens after that? I just, go on like nothing happened? I can't get Calleigh pregnant and then act like nothing happened. I can't just leave her there all huge and hormonal. Who's gonna get the ice cream and pickles at three in the morning?"

"Well, let's just get one thing straight, honey: you are _not_ getting Calleigh pregnant," Alexx said, reiterating the words. "Not the traditional way. You're just helping her make a baby—"

He shook his head. "It's all the same, Alexx."

"No, it's not. And you need to understand that, Eric," she said. "Second, that's very noble of you, honey, but I think Calleigh knows what she's getting herself into."

"Does she?" Eric said. "Everyone loves a baby on paper, Alexx, but it's not the same when you actually have one."

Alexx gave him an unfavorable look. "Eric, you don't have to tell me about being a working mom."

"You have a husband, Alexx."

He thought he could see a fleeting pang of pain in her eyes before she looked down again, and he only realized too little too late what he'd said. "And Calleigh might find someone soon. She's not choosing spinsterhood, she's just going about things in her own way."

Eric sighed. Of course he hadn't thought of that. If anything the thought of Calleigh having his baby and then marrying another man made the situation twice as troubling.

"Eric, you have to understand that if you say yes, you would just be a sperm donor. That's it," Alexx continued, speaking the words carefully. "This would be _her_ baby. She would raise the baby, she gets to make all the decisions, and that includes what your role would be in all of this. It's up to Calleigh, and if she decides she doesn't want you around, you have to accept that."

Eric looked away, trying not to reveal how much the words stung.

"If you can't understand that, then my advice to you is: say no," she continued. "Don't make this complicated for her, Eric. She doesn't deserve that."

He looked at her and she looked serious, perhaps the most serious he'd ever seen Alexx look. Of course he didn't want to hurt Calleigh in any way, but that also meant he wanted to protect her from anything that might cause her harm. And this situation had the potential of making her life that much harder. He knew Calleigh could handle it, because Calleigh could handle anything. She was a super hero in his eyes. But sometimes she took that for granted and got herself into dangerous situations. He'd been witness to her trying to stand up to men twice as big as her many times, and he feared she had approached this situation with the same false sense of security.

"Now get out of here, you're distracting me," Alexx said, shooshing him away and Eric smiled unenthusiastically and walked back towards the lab.

He spent the rest of his morning knee-deep in fingerprints to think much about the present situation, and for that he was glad. Work had always been a welcoming distraction from the outside world, and it was probably the reason why he often found himself working so many hours. He saw Calleigh arrive an hour after he did, and the way she practically bounced into the lab, all smiles, he could tell their dinner had lifted a huge weight off her shoulders.

Unfortunately, the same weight had been placed onto his.

_ To be continued._


	4. Chapter 4

The Chicken Or The Egg  
_Chapter Three_

Extricating himself from the fingerprint lab hadn't been easy. Standing over the tens of cards, all covered in black ink, at times could make him feel like an addict. It was a hypnotic obsession - whorls, loops, and archs beckoning him, like putting together a microscopic puzzle with tweezers as the clock ticked and the computer madly searched for a compatible print a few feet away. When it couldn't find a match it merely prompted him to return to the puzzle and try to find the missing piece, fueling the addiction. When it did, he felt the warm wave of relief crawling through his veins like a junkie finally getting his fix after a long sleepless night. It wasn't easy to walk away. Wasn't easy to admit defeat (even when defeat became aggressive and admitted him). Work could sometimes become a dangerous obsession.

Of course, there was also that other little detail, knowing that without the stress of work his mind was free to wander to other places, where the curves of whorls, loops, and archs transformed into curls of blonde and porcelain and green spheres, and the question that had been plaguing his mind for 14 hours and 45 minutes now came back with a fury. The lesser of two evils, and he took the plunge into the oblivion of the former addiction, knowing it had the power to kill him faster.

But when the loops began to sway and the archs to bend, when his vision became blurry and the missing pieces couldn't be found, he knew it was time to walk away. And so at lunch Eric walked into the break room, where Ryan and Valera were seated by the round table, eating. Before opening the refrigerator he reached for a bottle of aspirin in a cupboard to prevent the headache he knew would find him some time that day from doing so, and as he drowned it down with a little tap water their distant words floated into him like an echo. He didn't know what the hell they were talking about, nor did he care, but he thought it all sounded a tad weird as he began to make himself a sandwich.

"I'm sorry, am I a bitch for hating on Rory?" Valera said.

"Uh, no!" Ryan said.

"What's the deal with her forehead? How many airplanes could you land on it?"

"I know, she's not that pretty."

"Or charming."

"That bitch!" Ryan hissed, mock anger in his features and his fist clenched.

Valera smiled and shrugged her shoulders, reaching for one of his potato chips. "Well, she's not that bad."

"You know, I always thought she was very redeemable," Ryan quickly said. Valera chuckled, her big eyes squinting slightly, until she noticed Eric by the counter. She looked at him, quickly noting the slight arch of his back (a famous Delko telltale) and she gave Ryan a questioning look but Ryan merely shrugged his shoulders.

So Valera, sensing something strange was afoot, grabbed one last potato chip from Ryan's bag and stood up. "I better get back to work," she said, giving Ryan a silent order with her eyes along the lines of _get the gossip and meet me in the lab later_, to which Ryan nodded like an eager puppy. He watched her go, smiling at his lunch and shifting in his seat with a newfound little something in his demure that hadn't been there the week before.

When Eric finished fixing his sandwich he turned around and gave Ryan a look. "Gilmore Girls. _Really_?"

Ryan shook his head and smiled. "I don't actually watch it."

"Really? Cause you seem to know a lot about it."

"My niece has cheerleading practice on Tuesdays, I Tivo it for her," Ryan explained. "She comes over and watches it. I like her, it's nice having her around."

Eric approached the table and sat down. "So you've turned your beautiful Tuesday night rituals with your niece into some sort of disgusting pick-up tactic."

"Chicks love the Gilmores," Ryan said.

Eric shook his head (internally groaning at Ryan's choice of words) as he picked at the bread of his sandwich. "You know Valera's not like any other _chick_."

Ryan quickly grew mildly serious. "What is that supposed to mean."

Eric shook his head and smiled. "You're way out of your league, man."

"Am I?" Ryan said, the strength in his voice diminishing at the thought. Simultaneously, he straightened his posture to cover for it.

Eric finally took a bite off his sandwich and as he chewed he added, "You don't know Valera."

Ryan frowned at him suspiciously. "Do you?"

Eric chuckled. "No, I can honestly say I've never been there," he said. "But I've met a few of her ex-boyfriends, and you don't fit that bill very well."

Ryan's frown diminished slightly and he shifted in place, scratching the side of his forehead as he thought. "Well, maybe that's the reason why they're ex-boyfriends."

Eric looked at him. "You're really serious about this."

"She's funny," Ryan said, shrugging his shoulders. "I like her; she's pretty... why not?"

"Because you'll ask her out and she'll say no and then we'll have to deal with you being an ass for weeks," Eric said. "Or, she'll say yes and it'll be a disaster because let's face it, it's _you_ and Valera, and then we'll have to deal with you being an ass for weeks. Since both outcomes contain the words 'you' and 'ass' you can understand why the whole lab is reluctant about your little budding friendship."

Ryan thought about it for a moment, ignoring his cleverly disguised insults (it happened so often he barely noticed it anymore), and added, "Or... secret option number three--"

"There is no secret option number three," Eric said dully.

"I'm evoking secret option number three."

"You can't do that."

"Says who?"

"Says your famous history of ass-baggery," Eric said. "Besides, we're not playing _Harry Potter_, you can't say something, wave a wand in the air and make it valid."

"Whatever," Ryan scowled. Looking down at his bag of potato chips, he pushed it away, and though he told himself he didn't care what Eric or the whole lab thought of him and Valera, the words sank into him slowly and quickly he lost his appetite. But as he took a deep breath he forced it out of his mind, knowing Eric wasn't exactly a relationships expert anyway, and looked at him again. He squinted his eyes and cocked his head to his side slightly.

"You look terrible," Ryan noted, grimacing. "Did you even sleep last night? I thought—" he stopped, quickly remembering something, and gasped as he snapped his fingers, "I was right!"

Eric sighed and his shoulders instinctively hunched slightly. "Shut up."

"Emotional hangover." Ryan nodded happily and chuckled. "Yeah!"

"You know what, Ryan? Go ahead," Eric said, standing up and taking his sandwich with him. "Put on your shiniest vest and cleanest pants and send Valera a little love note, it's been a while since we had some entertainment around here," he added, grabbing a soda from the fridge.

"Fine, I will," Ryan said arrogantly and then softened up slightly. "Any advice?"

Eric thought about it for a moment, or seemingly, as he opened up his can of soda and took a drink from it. He nodded thoughtfully. "Take her to a nice restaurant, and remind her at all times that this will burn a hole in your wallet and that she should be grateful that you're spending a lot of money on her. Be an ass to the hostess if she doesn't sit you in a nice table, being you I imagine that'll be easy. Talk about yourself at all times, especially about your ex-girlfriends, all one of them. Use fancy words like _thyne, ye, _and _olde,_ it's very romantic. In fact, wear a puffy shirt and smoke a pipe, girls really dig Shakespeare.

Remember to act possessive at all costs, women like it when you make all the decisions so be forceful and treat her like she is your _property_. Bonus points for acting aggressive towards any other males that interact with her, including the waiter. After the date don't wait long to call, in fact call her that night and tell her you're in love with her. Works _every time_."

Ryan looked at him and rolled his eyes, annoyed. "Like it's possible to find an authentic Shakespearean pipe in Miami."

Eric nodded thoughtfully again. "You're right. Well, in that case be yourself. What's not to love, right? I mean, you only got her fired, what was it--"

Ryan frowned. "Once."

"Oh, just once? That's not so bad, I guess," Eric said. "Alright, good luck, man. Keep me posted."

He left the break room with a smile on his face, wishing he could be there when Ryan finally took the plunge and decided to ask Valera out, and then wishing he could be at the next table, with a camera, to what was sure to be a disastrous first date for them (IF Valera said yes, which was doubtful, though when it came to Valera nothing surprised him).

Taking one more bite off his sandwich as he walked, he was on his way outside to finish his lunch break in peace when Natalia walked out of the layout room and upon seeing him, stood in the middle of the hallway waiting for him. The way she played with the file in her hands impatiently, Eric knew it was work related, and he tried to think of a way to avoid her but as he tired to duck into the bathroom she walked over and met him halfway.

"Hey, I've been looking for you."

"Lunch break," he informed her, showing her his half eaten sandwich, though the look on her face told him he was going to have to cut his lunch break short.

"Hm," she said, ignoring his tone. "So I was at the morgue, our John Doe was just identified by his parents. His name is Julian Mora, he's 23. Wanna guess where he works?"

"No," Eric a little crabbily.

"Biscayne," she said, arching one eyebrow up for dramatic purposes.

It clicked for Eric instantly and he sighed, but then his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "But if he _was_ killed in the shootout, what was his body doing in Little Haiti?"

Natalia shrugged her shoulders. "Dump job?"

"Obviously, but why?" Eric said, feeling irritated. "If he was already dead why not leave him there?"

"Shootout wasn't so random after all?" Natalia speculated. "Or maybe he didn't die at the scene? Mule? Necrophiliacs? I don't know, you're the senior," she added, giving him the file.

Eric grabbed it, going over the new information. Of course, this was progress, because he and Natalia had been sitting on this case for a day now and they had no leads, no motive, and apparently they'd been working the wrong crime scene all along. This was good. The problem? Julian Mora died of a gunshot wound to the stomach, and yet the crew at the scene had yet to find the bullet. And if Mora really was a victim of the Biscayne shootout that only meant one thing: he had to go see Calleigh.

He frowned at this thought, feeling slightly nervous at the prospect of facing her. He looked at his sandwich with disinterest, his appetite now gone, and passed it to Natalia. "Buen provecho."

Natalia grabbed it with a grimace and tossed it into the nearest trashcan, where Cooper found it 10 minutes later and gave it a proper burial in his stomach.

Calleigh's Lair was suspiciously quiet that noon, and if he hadn't known she'd be processing bullets he would've assumed she wasn't there at all. Eric stood by the door, leaning into the frame as he watched her, and she was so engrossed in the work she didn't notice him there. It gave him a chance to examine her demeanor, and though she was immersed in work she still looked as relaxed as he'd seen her that morning.

He resented it slightly, but quickly tried to put it out of his mind.

"Hey," he said casually.

She looked up quickly, noticed him standing by the door and smiled brightly. "Hey."

Her good humor infected him and Eric found himself smiling. "You look happy."

"I have bullets," she announced playfully, grinning and showing him the infinite line of bullets she'd collected from the Biscayne Bay shootout. As soon as he heard the news over the radio, Eric knew Christmas had come early for Calleigh.

He chuckled. "When you were a kid, Calleigh, did your Barbies beat up your brothers' G.I. Joes?"

"Only when they were stingy with their machine guns," she said casually, replacing the already processed bullet with a new one. With her eyes on the new bullet the whole time, she added, "do you need anything?"

"Yeah, actually. I was looking for a bullet."

"Well, you've come to the right place," she said, leaning away from the microscope and presenting him with the wide assortment of bullets and casings. "Now, what do I have to do to get you to take a bullet home today?"

Eric smiled and walked into the room. "Well, this particular bullet was used to kill my John Doe, aka Julian Mora."

Calleigh turned serious. "What was your victim doing in my shootout?"

"What was _your_ shootout doing killing my victim?"

"I asked first."

Eric smiled. "Well, his parents identified him just now, apparently he went to work yesterday at Biscayne and never came home. He's got a bullet wound but we can't find the bullet anywhere, so," he said. "Just putting two and two together."

Calleigh thought it over and sighed. "Well, in this case I'm telling you the answer is not four," she said and looked at him as he frowned. "I'm sorry, Eric, we've combed that scene twice now, and there's no evidence of there being a third victim. If Mora was in the shootout, either someone cleaned up or he bled out somewhere else--"

"He was shot in the stomach, it's a slow bleed," Eric said.

She looked at him reluctantly. "Through and through?"

Eric sighed. "Just humor me, okay? I'm at a dead end here."

Calleigh took a deep breath and let it out, "alright, well, I guess it doesn't hurt to look. I'll let you know if I find the bullet," she said with a smile, watching him nod slightly and though the issue had been resolved (or so it seemed) he still stood there, nodding and looking at the bullets.

Calleigh knew him well, and it became increasingly obvious from the way he grew distracted that thoughts of the case were replaced with something else. His right knee began to bend and unbend rapidly, something he subconsciously did when there was something important on his mind, and though Calleigh knew precisely what it was (the worry lines were a dead give away) she was reluctant to egg him on, fearing he would feel like she was trying to pressure him, and the conversation they had the night before made him stressful enough, she knew.

"Unless you wanna help?" she added, knowing that if she gave him time and space, eventually he'd come through.

So they worked in silence, Calleigh processing the bullets, Eric checking them for blood or fingerprints, and after a while she purposely began to lag, hoping that as he waited for her to finish processing the new bullet, the silence would prompt him to talk. After fifteen minutes of silence, she finally saw him shift his weight nervously from one leg to the other and she took a deep breath to brace herself.

"I've been thinking about what you said."

She straightened up and looked at him, and his hesitation made her forget her own and she smiled. "Eric, take your time, okay? I don't want you to make this decision in—" she looked at her watch, "17 hours!"

He looked down and smiled slightly. "I just have a couple of questions."

The announcement worried her slightly and she began to feel a little cornered, but under the circumstances she figured she owed him as many answers as she could give him for putting him in this difficult situation. "Okay."

He hesitated for a moment, wondering how to approach the subject. He knew what he wanted to say, ask, but he didn't want to come off like a condescending jackass, and where he was concerned, Calleigh tended to take offense easily.

He frowned and tried to sound gentle, leaving the rest to God. "How are you gonna do this? I mean, we work 18 hours a day."

Calleigh smiled, glad that he started off with an easy one. "Eric, we work 18 hours a day because we want to," she said, passing him the bullet and retrieving a new one. "Most of the things we do here I could do from home: paperwork, filing. When I'm here I can get a babysitter or find a daycare center, in a few years there'll be pre-school and school..." She looked at him and smiled. "We'll be fine."

He smiled. Being around Calleigh, sometimes he felt like he could reach the stars at the end of the universe if he merely tried. "Sounds easy."

"Well, of course it's not," she admitted. "Won't be easy, but it won't be impossible, either."

Eric nodded, looking down once more. The new bullet lay there, ignored, and he tried to put all the questions that flooded his mind in order and perspective, but there were so many of them and he had such a hard time trying to understand why she was doing this that they all mixed up with each other and he didn't know how to continue.

Scratching his head he sighed, trying to get his confusion and frustration under control, but the words came out in a rush. "This is crazy, Calleigh. You could have any guy you wanted, I would—"

"Eric," Calleigh stopped him, her words gentle. "There's penthouse fantasies, and then there's reality. Guys love guns, and they love girls with guns, until a girl with a gun comes along, and then they get scared or intimidated," she said, and though he looked confused she'd been there enough times to truly know what it was like for a woman like her in the world.

"Sometimes I go out and I have to lie and say I'm a school teacher or a nurse, because as soon as I mention I'm a cop they get that look on their faces and take off. It's not easy," she finished.

He frowned and nearly laughed at the thought. "That's... ridiculous."

"No, that's men," she said, trying to make it sound more humorous than it was. "And the good ones... honestly, I don't even know where to look anymore."

He looked at her, knowing she might shoot him for his next statement but he needed to know her intentions were rational. "I don't accept that."

Her eyes widened momentarily and she gave him a daring look. "Do you think I'm single on purpose?"

He looked at her, knowing she wouldn't lie about something like this, but it all sounded so ridiculous he wondered if she was exaggerating. Calleigh Duquesne, not being able to score a date because of her work. He wanted to laugh. For seven years he'd known her, and her work, her passion for guns, her intelligence, strength, and assertiveness were few of the many things about her he found so attractive. That there were men out there that rejected these very same qualities... he knew men were stupid, but this went beyond sheer male stupidity.

When he didn't offer an answer she shook her head. "Eric, I wouldn't do this if..." she stammered suddenly, knowing that it was always harder to say the words than to think them, "it's not a decision I made overnight, okay? I've been thinking about it for a really long time. I've tried to meet someone, I really have. It's just not that easy for me as it is for you."

"That's—" he reacted too quickly and sighed to stop himself and looked at her seriously. "I meet a lot of people, Cal, a lot of girls. Meeting someone special—that hasn't happened in a while. In years. But if I give up—"

"I'm _not_ giving up, Eric," she interrupted him tersely.

He looked at her. "It feels like you are."

"I'm just... I'm trying something different," she said, choosing her words carefully and trying to sound assertive, knowing she would have to repeat the same speech to dozens of people in the upcoming months. "Conventional hasn't gotten me anywhere yet. I don't know if you've met a crop of my ex-boyfriends, but they don't exactly make a merry bunch, I'm not even sure the word bunch applies."

Eric sighed. "Having a kid is not gonna make things easier, Calleigh. If anything, it makes it harder."

"Well, honestly, Eric, if a guy can't love me because I have a child, then I don't know that he's worth my time," she said cantankerously.

He smiled. She had a point there and he should've known he wouldn't be able to win this, because when Calleigh made up her mind about something, there was no backing down. And he didn't want to, in a way. He trusted her enough to know she wouldn't make any foolish decisions in the blink of an eye. But a part of him needed the answers, needed to get in her head and figure her out before he made a choice, because he knew he was more emotional than she was, less objective, and if she wasn't doing this for the right reasons, if she wasn't 100 percent certain that she was doing the right thing, he knew he might ultimately end up making the wrong decision and possibly ruining her life.

_Their_ lives.

So he thought for a moment, scratching his forehead. "It's just that," he continued, looking down at the bullet she'd passed on to him, it remained untouched on the counter, "I think I know you better than anyone else, and then you drop this bomb on me.

She half smiled, shrugging her shoulders slightly. "I'm sorry?"

Eric chuckled slightly and finally looked at her. "Where did this come from?"

She looked down and breathed out, biting the inside of her cheek and wondering how she could explain it to him. Part of her knew all the answers, while the other part, at times, felt as confused as Eric was feeling. She'd gone through it all a million times in the last few months, enough to pin-point part of its origin, and she offered him one of the reasons she knew he'd understand better.

"Remember that little girl from the Rivera case, Emma?" she asked him.

Eric thought about it for a while and nodded. "Yeah, she saw her father get killed."

"I knew then," she confessed, remembering the day with a smile. "I was sitting on the floor with her and that's when I realized. I don't know why, I just knew. I still visit her sometimes. She's amazing, Eric. She's so smart and strong. The way her eyes lighten up when I walk in the door... I want that."

She sighed, feeling frustrated and though it was mostly Eric who had, at times, been allowed into her mind, she'd always hated opening that door altogether. "I know it's hard to understand--"

"I think I understand more than you think," he said gently.

She smiled then, his confession making her feel lighter, less crazy. As much as she appreciated Alexx's love and support, she _needed_ to know it wasn't just her, who went home alone night after night, wondering if there was something more out there, wondering if she was as deserving as the rest of the world. She needed to feel like there would be someone there with her, helping her along not out of loyalty or love, but out of sympathy and understanding. She needed someone to feel as she felt every night when the minutes tickled slowly and the empty side of her bed looked infinite. Hearing him confirm that he did understand, that he _lived_ it, made her feel less lonely.

"Why me?"

She looked at him quickly, and though she knew the question would be coming, sooner or later, she couldn't stop it from shaking her defenses and she looked at her bullet again. She had all her speeches prepared, all the reasons neatly typed up in a long piece of paper in her mind, had all the answers... but this one, this one still kept her up most nights.

"Why not Horatio or Ryan, or... Cooper?" he continued.

She took her time, and he gave it to her. The bullet screamed for her attention, but she ignored it as she chose her words carefully, but still feeling like she was taking an important test without knowing the material well. He'd always been much better at this than her.

"I've known Ryan for two years, Eric," she said. "And I know him as a CSI. I don't know him as a person, and I'm not sure... I don't trust him, not yet, he's—"

"An ass?" he said bitterly.

She gave him a stern look. "He doesn't always think before he speaks," she said. "And he's Jewish. There are numerous Mandelian disorders that are carried by Jewish genes that can cause problems. I know that sounds awful, but genetically I don't wanna take any risks."

Eric nodded. "Well, Horatio—"

"Well, Horatio's my boss. I can't walk into my boss's office and ask for a pay increase and a vial of sperm, it's not very polite," she explained with a smile. "Besides, I don't have that trust with him. And Cooper... I don't know Cooper, Eric. I know you. I know your family, I know your medical history. There was a 1986 analysis by Japanese scientists of biracial children and on average they tended to score higher in mental ability tests than their monoracial peers."

Eric chuckled, shaking his head. "Leave it to you to make a purely subjective decision based on science."

"It's not just science," she admitted, looking down and feeling frustrated at her inability to get her point across, to put her feelings into words. Purposely, she avoided eye contact. "I don't feel comfortable with anyone else. And I don't know who these men are, in these sperm banks. They look good on paper, but I don't know anything about them, what they do or who they are. Personality traits are inherited and if I could design a child, I think..." she sighed, looking away and finally mustering the strength to look at him. "You're smart, talented, and you have a good heart. I want my baby to have those qualities, too."

Eric couldn't help smiling at her words, feeling his heart swell at her confession, and seeing her so nervous, so out of her element and raw and honest, he felt an immense urge to hold her and help her scare those fears away.

Instead he nodded, knowing she would most likely not appreciate that right now. "So you just want my genes."

She smiled widely. "I want your genes."

He chuckled. "I feel so cheap."

Calleigh laughed. "Don't, this is gonna cost a _fortune_."

His smile waned and he looked at her in the eyes as he asked one last time, "You really wanna do this."

"I do," Calleigh said honestly, nodding.

She smiled and there was no mistaking the twinkle in her eyes, the little wrinkles around her mouth that told him she was serious about this, that she was happy about the idea of giving this a chance. As much as he hated to admit it, it was the happiest Eric had seen her in a long time.

"Okay," he said with a sigh, knowing that was the final nail in the coffin.

She nodded. "Take your time. A month."

"A month?"

"Even if you decide before that, just take a month. Think about it."

Eric nodded, and as she returned her attention to the bullet he wondered how he would go on about this. He had a month, possibly more time if he asked, and though he felt a little better, was breathing easier, he knew that for the next thirty days this question would never leave his mind.

"You were right."

He looked at her and straightened up.

"I got some blood here," she whispered, and Eric's attention was back in the case. She pulled back and thought for a moment before she turned to him. "What if your victim caused my shootout?"

Eric frowned. "How do you figure?"

"Well, it was the only body taken from the scene," she said, looking ahead, the wheels in her head turning. "Misdirection, Eric. It's why a magician waves at his audience with one hand while he's secretly doing something with the other."

"So use a shootout to cover up a murder."

"Guy in his early twenties, working in in Biscayne Bay, body's dumped in Little Haiti..."

"Somebody wanted him to disappear."

Calleigh nodded with a smile. "Go see where he lives, talk to his family his friends... lots of gangs in Little Haiti, he may have pissed the wrong people off."

"Okay. Thanks, Cal," Eric said.

"No problem." She gave him the bullet in a little plastic bag and he walked away, hoping the blood in it did in fact belong to Julian Mora and that they were on to something.

But as he reached the door he stopped, the case took a backseat again and his thumb tapped on the frame a few times before he turned around, hesitantly asking,

"Why should I do it?"

She looked up, realizing quickly he wasn't talking about the case anymore. She thought about the question for a while, and though she came up with a few shallow answers, none of them seemed true or satisfactory. Ultimately she looked him in the eyes, feeling their intensity in her chest.

"I don't know."

Eric smiled. "That doesn't help."

"I know," she confessed.

He nodded, looking down at the bullet. "Okay."

Walking away from the room, he took a deep breath and let it out quickly, putting the whole issue out of his mind, for now, and trying to concentrate on the case. He felt a little more relaxed, a new sense of direction and a path opening up in front of him, a wave of confidence. An hour ago he'd been at a loss, not knowing the victim's name, missing a murder weapon and a crime scene, missing all the answers and going crazy, and all that time everything he'd been looking for he'd found with Calleigh.

The metaphoric implications remained unnoticed.

_ To be continued._


End file.
